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| Pietro de' Pietri St Clement giving the veil to St Flavia Domitilla ca. 1710-16 watercolor Royal Collection, Windsor |
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| attributed to Gabriel de Saint-Aubin Theatrical Divertissement before 1780 watercolor Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Juste-Aurèle Meissonnier Chariot of Apollo (ceiling design for Count Bielinski's cabinet, Warsaw) 1734 watercolor, gouache Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum |
"In writing, as in life, faults are endured without disgust when they are associated with transcendent merit, and may be sometimes recommended to weak judgments by the luster which they obtain from their union with excellence; but it is the business of those who presume to superintend the taste and morals of mankind to separate delusive combinations, and distinguish that which may be praised from that which can only be excused. As vices never promote happiness, though when overpowered by more active and numerous virtues they cannot totally destroy it; so confusion and irregularity produce no beauty, though they cannot always obstruct the brightness of genius and learning. To proceed from one truth to another, and connect distant propositions by regular consequences, is the great prerogative of man. Independent and unconnected sentiments flashing upon the mind in quick succession may for a time delight by their novelty, but they differ from systematical reasoning as single notes from harmony, as glances of lightning from the radiance of the sun."
– Samuel Johnson, from The Rambler, Saturday, 21 September 1751
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| Anonymous Spanish artist Fan with Theatrical Mask and Theatrical Scenes 1740s watercolor on paper, with ivory sticks Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
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| Charles-Louis Clérisseau Colosseum, Rome ca. 1750-55 watercolor Hermitage, Saint Petersburg |
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| Hubert Robert Architectural Fantasy 1760 watercolor Albertina, Vienna |
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| Francesco Navone Stage-design with Palatial Hall ca. 1760-90 watercolor Morgan Library, New York |
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| François Cuvilliés the Younger Scroll Ornament 1768 watercolor Museum Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf |
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| Jean-Charles Delafosse A Masquerade 1770-80 watercolor Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum |
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| Nicola Fiore Chinoiserie wall-decoration for drawing room in the Palace of Caserta 1775 watercolor, gouache Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum |
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| Jean Grandjean Arcadian Landscape 1777 watercolor British Museum |
"The range of pastoral is indeed narrow, for though nature itself, philosophically considered, be inexhaustible, yet its general effects on the eye and on the ear are uniform, and incapable of much variety of description. Poetry cannot dwell upon the minuter distinctions by which one species differs from another, without departing from that simplicity of grandeur which fills the imagination; nor dissect the latent qualities of things, without losing its general power of gratifying every mind by recalling its conceptions. . . . But pastoral subjects have been often, like others, taken into the hands of those that were not qualified to adorn them, men to whom the face of nature was so little known, that they have drawn it only after their own imagination, and changed or distorted her features, that their portraits might appear something more than servile copies from their predecessors. Not only the images of rural life, but the occasions on which they can be properly produced, are few and general. The state of a man confined to the employments and pleasures of the country, is so little diversified, and exposed to so few of those accidents which produce perplexities, terrors and surprises, in more complicated transactions, that he can be shown but seldom in such circumstances as attract curiosity. His ambition is without policy, and his love without intrigue."
– Samuel Johnson, from The Rambler, Saturday, 21 July 1750
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| Paul Sandby Meteor of 1783, Windsor watercolor 1783 Royal Collection, Windsor |
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| Louis-Jean Desprez Scenery for the opera Frigga 1787 watercolor Hermitage, Saint Petersburg |
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| Asmus Jakob Carstens Philoctetes aiming the bow of Hercules at Odysseus 1790 watercolor Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin |